Students in public universities will have an extended first semester to make up for the time lost during lecturers' recent strike.
This is according to the new return-to-work formula seen by the Nation.
Individual universities have started issuing students with the new dates for end-of-semester examinations. The move aims to accommodate academic disruptions caused by the prolonged strike.
“The Universities Academic Staff Union (Uasu) unionisable employees shall commit to work with university management of public universities and their constituent colleges on a practical programme to ensure that public universities recover the teaching time lost during the industrial action without fail,” reads part of the document.
However, the extension will greatly impact students’ welfare as many of them have remained on campus without learning yet are spending money on upkeep and rent. The students will not receive extra support from the government for the added time and will have to wait for the beginning of the second semester to receive the second installment of their student loans.
Speaking to the Nation , Uasu secretary-general Constantine Wasonga said that some universities will extend the semester by about a month. This means that they will break for the Christmas holidays and then resume in January 2025 to do examinations.
The decision comes after weeks of negotiations between the government and Uasu. The lecturers had downed tools over delays in salary disbursements, unimplemented 2021 – 2025 collective bargaining agreements (CBA), and deteriorating working conditions. Lecturers resumed work on Monday, November 25, 2024.
The University of Nairobi (UoN), Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST), and Multimedia University of Kenya (MMU) are some of the universities Nation has confirmed to have extended their semesters. The students are now expected to sit for their examinations between January and February 2025.
At the UoN, the classes will continue until December 20 2024 and students will resume on January 5, 2025. The end-of-semester examinations are scheduled from January 20 to 31 2025.
“From November 25, 2024, to December 20, 2024, teaching and learning will resume for a four-week period before the three-week Christmas break scheduled from December 20, 2024 to January 5, 2025.
"Classes will then resume briefly from January 13 2025 to January 17, 2025, for one week of teaching and learning. The semester will conclude with end-of-semester examinations from January 20, 2025, to January 31, 2025, followed by a two-week break from 3rd February 2025 to February 14, 2025," reads the UoN timetable.
At JKUAT, students will also attend lectures until December 20, 2024, before breaking for the Christmas holidays before resuming in January 2025 to continue learning, and then sit their examinations.
“The semester has been extended. We have been given an additional one month for the time lost,” said Freedah Wanzal, the dean of students at Jkuat.
MMUST confirmed that the semester is set to conclude on December 20, 2024, while the students will take their examinations in January 2025. MMU also confirmed that the students will sit their examinations in January 2025.
Kenyatta University (KU), in its communication, said that examinations for regular students (full-time and part-time), initially scheduled for November 21 to December 11, 2024, have been rescheduled to take place from Thursday, November 28 to Friday, December 20, 2024.
The return-to-work formula confirms that lecturers have resumed their duties effective immediately, with assurances that pending salaries and allowances will be paid in a phased approach. A technical team is currently meeting at Machakos University to work out the details of how lecturers will be paid the first tranche of Sh4.3 billion.
“The university academic staff is convinced that the government has acceded to what we wanted. I want to press upon lectures, but we should prepare to resume classes. We should also prepare to arrange with the university management and senate to cover the time lost, so that the students can get good education," Dr Wasonga when he called off the strike.
UASU officially agreed to return to work following the signing of the agreement with the Inter-Public Universities Councils Consultative Forum (IPUCCF). The deal includes the government's commitment to fully implement the 2021–2025 CBA, which is valued at Sh9.7 billion.
The implementation will occur in three tranches, with the first tranche of Sh4.3 billion covering nine months up to June 2025. The remaining Sh5.4 billion will be disbursed in two instalments of Sh2.7 billion each in two years.
As part of the agreement, all legal cases arising from the recent lecturers' strike will be withdrawn.
